التصنيف: New releases

Codex Amrensis 1, the first volume of the seriesDocumenta Coranica contains images and Arabic texts of four sets of fragments (seventy-five sheets) of the Qurʾān codex, once kept in the ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ Mosque at Al-Fusṭāṭ, and now in the collections of the National Library of Russia, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha and the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art. It includes an extensive introduction, the facsimile of the original, and the full text with annotations.The manuscript, copied during the first half of the 8th century and written inḥiǧāzīscript, contains diacritical signs for about 20% of the letters, without any signs for short vowels. It varies from today’s reference editions of the Qurʾān in verse numbering and has a different orthography. Essential reading for students and scholars of the history of the Qurʾān and its written transmission.

*Courtesy of Brill. This work, along with Sana’a Palimpsest by Asma Hilali, was recently reviewed at JAOS; see Sinai, Nicolai (2020). Beyond the Cairo Edition: On the Study of Early Quranic Codices, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 140, 1, pp. 189-204.

The Qur’an is the foundational sacred text of the Islamic faith. Traditionally revered as the literal word of God, its pronouncements and discussions form the bedrock of Islamic beliefs and teachings. Notwithstanding its religious pre-eminence and the fact that it is the sacred text for over one billion of the world’s Muslims, the Qur’an is also considered to be the matchless masterpiece of the Arabic language. Its historical impact as a text can be discerned in all aspects of the heritage of the Arabic literary tradition. Over recent decades, academic engagement with the Qur’an has produced an impressive array of scholarship, ranging from detailed studies of the text’s unique language, style and structure, to meticulous surveys of its contents, concepts and historical contexts. The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies is an essential reference and starting point for those with an academic interest in the Qur’an. It offers not only detailed reviews of influential subjects in the field, but also a critical overview of developments in the research discourse. It explores the tradition of Qur’anic exegesis and hermeneutics, making it a comprehensive academic resource for the study of the Qur’an. No single volume devoted to such a broad academic survey of the state of the field currently exists.